Day: October 14, 2011

“An international computer whizz-kid was jailed today after trying to bring new bank card scamming technology into Britain. German Thomas Beeckmann, 26, was stopped in June at Victoria coach station having just arrived from Holland.Police found 17 electronic circuits capable of stealing £150 million a year from chip and PIN machines.”

“The Home Office has quickly rejected a call from the government’s official drug advisers to decriminalise the personal possession of all illegal drugs, including heroin and cocaine. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) has said it would be better if the tens of thousands of people caught with illicit drugs were sent on drug education and awareness courses rather than punished with fines and other penalties, up to imprisonment.”

“The office of the Information Commissioner has confirmed it is investigating claims that the Conservative minister Oliver Letwin has been disposing of government documents in bins in a park close to Downing Street.”

“The Supreme Court has ruled that the Home Secretary’s refusal to grant visas to non-resident spouses under a certain age breached their right to family life under Article 8 of the Convention. A strong dissent from Lord Brown touches on the raw nerve of judicial competence and the role of Article 8 in policy making.”

“The Home Secretary Theresa May was lambasted last week for an inaccurate reference to cats, but the more general view expressed by her and most of the media that the Human Rights Act is routinely getting in the way of national security interests is also arguably misleading.”

“The Leveson inquiry into press regulation and media standards will not start hearing evidence from witnesses until November. It had hoped to get under way in October but will now start ‘before the second week in November’.”

“Lady Gaga may call her fans ‘little monsters’ but it appears she has no love for Moshi Monsters, after taking legal action in an effort to stop the children’s social network using an animated character, singer Lady Goo Goo. The Paparazzi singer gained an interim injunction against the parent company of the wildly popular Moshi Monsters, banning Lady Goo Goo from performing songs on YouTube, the Guardian has learned.”